This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.

I pray my kids have the option too. So like I said, keep funding science at the expense of other man-made needs since history has shown those other needs won't even end (they defy physics)...

One has to wonder where we'd be today had we not seemingly gone chincy on space exploration after beating the Russians to the moon and then the space shuttle. Yeah, there have been a few things here and there, but NOTHING like the effort we made in the 60s...

The USA saw it as a war, a challenge to be overcome. Money wasn't the goal, the pursuit of knowledge was more important.

For better or worse our society wants and rewards the making of money. The pursuit of science that may not see a practical application for 30, 50, 100 years just doesn't have the value it should have in this generation.

My son dropped out of college for a semester. He was on the path to make 100+K a year in 6 months. He still wants to have money, be rich enough to do what he wants in life. But, he made a decision that how you get to the making money, being rich part was just as important as the money itself.

For him the never ending intelletual challenge of physics was a better path than just making money for making money sake.

But who knows maybe after the undergraduate is finished he says I just want money.

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Some on here need some perspective. Remember Haley/Crennel/Gunther/Herm etc. it can get a lot worse.

The NFL hired 2 of Reid's OC’s to be head coaches in the last 3 years. One is already in the Super Bowl this year with Foles as his QB. If any NFL team needs a coach and Reid is available, they will hire him over any person on the face of the earth, except for Bellicheck.

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Some on here need some perspective. Remember Haley/Crennel/Gunther/Herm etc. it can get a lot worse.

The NFL hired 2 of Reid's OC’s to be head coaches in the last 3 years. One is already in the Super Bowl this year with Foles as his QB. If any NFL team needs a coach and Reid is available, they will hire him over any person on the face of the earth, except for Bellicheck.

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Some on here need some perspective. Remember Haley/Crennel/Gunther/Herm etc. it can get a lot worse.

The NFL hired 2 of Reid's OC’s to be head coaches in the last 3 years. One is already in the Super Bowl this year with Foles as his QB. If any NFL team needs a coach and Reid is available, they will hire him over any person on the face of the earth, except for Bellicheck.

The aching head. The queasy stomach. The inability to get out of bed. Anyone who imbibes knows what a hangover feels like, with 75% of alcohol consumers saying they have experienced at least one in their lifetime, and 15% admitting to symptoms at least once a month.

But thanks to Australian scientists, there might finally be a cure at hand. As reported by the Australian, Researchers at Griffith University’s Health Institute in Queensland say they have invented a more hydrating beer by adding electrolytes, compounds commonly used in sports drinks, to their brew.

The new creation provides a third more hydration than a normal beer, and this increased fluid retention should also help prevent hangovers the following day. The scientists did have to reduce some of the beer’s alcohol content to about 2.3% (versus 4.8% alcohol) for best results, but they report the additional ingredients do not affect its taste.

While less headaches in the morning are an obvious benefit to the researcher’s invention, that’s not what associate professor Ben Desbrow set out to solve when he began work on the project. Rather, the Desbrow was concerned for the welfare of laborers who ended a hard day’s work with a cold one.

“What we’ve found is that many people who sweat a lot, especially tradesmen, knock off work and have a beer,” Desbrow told the Australian Associated Press. ”But alcohol in a dehydrated body can have all sorts of repercussions, including decreased awareness of risk.”

That’s where the scientists’ electrolyte-infused beer comes in. The researchers, who had their results published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, added electrolyte compounds to two commercial beers, one regular and one light, and then served the drinks to test subjects following a heavy workout. As a control, Desbrow also served some testers an unaltered version of the commercial beer.

The results showed the scientists might be on to something: “Of the four different beers the subjects consumed, our augmented light beer was by far the most well retained by the body, meaning it was the most effective at rehydrating the subjects,” said Desbrow.

So why will this new brew also help us avoid hangovers?

It turns out many of the symptoms we associate with having too much to drink are caused by too much urination. When alcohol enters the bloodstream, it blocks the creation of a chemical that allows water to be re-absorbed back into our body. Instead, our kidneys send all water right to the bladder, eventually resulting in dehydration (and multiple bathroom trips).

Not only does this cause organs to steal water from the brain — contributing to morning-after headaches — but it also causes the body to lose nutrients like potassium and sodium that are responsible for healthy cell function. An absence of these electrolyte elements causes headaches, nausea, and fatigue. The researchers’ new beer should help alleviate these symptoms by replenishing those compounds.

(MORE: Introducing Avocado Ale — and Other Odd Beers)

Of course, most certain way to avoid alcohol related dehydration is to just not drink as much. But Desbrow knows that’s a tough sell to many beer fans, and hopes his creation will help where well-meaning advice could not.

“If you’re going to live in the real world, you can either spend your time telling people what they shouldn’t do, or you can work on ways of reducing the danger of some of these socialised activities,” says Desbrow.

I've never experienced this, but at the same time, I have a really distorted perception of time compared to other people. A "chronological" past is a very difficult concept for me; I get the idea of "past" but the ordering of past is what is tricky for me. I have a hard time distinguishing something that happened yesterday vs something that happened a couple of weeks ago. Something that happened 15-20 years ago still seems relatively recent to me. I know when folks talk about events regarding the Chiefs, saying such and such happened in such and such year, it is such a foreign concept to me.

What happens to you when you glance at a clock with a moving second hand? As I understand, it shouldn't have anything to do with your perception of time. Your brain simply overrides "the blur" of moving your eyes with an image of what your eyes see when they stop moving.

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ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

Not all frog eyes are the same- frog eye color and pattern can be extremely important in identifying species (and describing new ones). Photo by Jodi Rowley.
Jodi Rowley is a National Geographic grantee discovering and documenting the diversity, ecology and conservation status of highly threatened amphibians in the forested mountains of Vietnam.

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I spend a lot of time photographing frog eyes. It’s perhaps not the first thing people think of when they hear of an expedition in search of amphibians, but I spend hours and hours every day sitting at camp and taking snaps of amphibian (mostly frog) eyes, feet, bellies and thighs. These photographs of amphibian “bits” are so important because they are often incredibly useful in identifying known species- or describing new species. Sometimes the easiest way to tell frog species apart is by eye color, or thigh pattern!

So every morning, as soon as I wake up, I begin photographing the frogs we found the night before. In addition to the close-ups of various amphibian body-parts, I take the more typical, and perhaps more ‘pretty’ photographs of the amphibian, sitting on whatever habitat it naturally hangs out on (trees for tree-frogs, leaves from the forest floor for ground-dwelling frogs). After the photographing is done, the team and I then record as much information as possible about each amphibian.

For each amphibian we record exactly where and when we found it (latitude, longitude and altitude, as well as whether it was sitting on a leaf or a rock, for example), and whether or not we took a photograph of it during our night survey. We now record details such as sex (body size and shape often give this away- males are often smaller, for example), and the species name- if we know it.

Sometimes we can’t identify a species that we find, either because it’s a new species, or because the species looks nearly identical to a handful of species.In these instances, we give the frog a code-name, such as “orange-belly” or “green-eyes”, and will switch names in our database later on, once we identify the species.

All of this information is recorded in little waterproof notebooks. It’s extremely important that they are waterproof, as our expeditions are almost all during the monsoon season and we spend most of the night in streams, into which notebooks have been known to fall!

On this particular day, we finished taking photographs and notes in about four hours, ate lunch, and then I used the satellite phone to call my mother and let her know we were doing okay. I then checked in on my clothes, hanging on our makeshift clothesline in the forest- it’s now been almost two days since I washed them, and they’re still damp (bordering on wet), and starting to smell like mold.

This is the norm for us in for the forest, and one of the reasons I tend to become extra-girly when I return from the field, actually wearing jewellery and dresses as opposed to the same smelly, wet, muddy clothes (including the attractive combination of pants tucked into my socks) that I’ve been wearing for days (see below).

At about 4.30pm, two of our team returned from the village (an entire day round-trip), where they had bought more supplies; chicken, 3 litres of home-made rice wine and a dozen tiny, rock-hard peaches. I watched the chicken being prepared for dinner; we now have chicken innards splattered on rocks around the stream (which is also our washing area- mildly concerning).

After dinner, we all get ready far too early, and had to sit in our wet gear until nightfall- we each only have a few changes of clothes so unless conditions are very dry (which they rarely are), we have to put on the same smelly, wet, and overall very unappealing clothes every night.

As night falls, we head to a much larger stream. It’s interesting how the species change with stream size. Gone are the tiny frogs that hang out in the shallow pools at the side of the stream. In their place are several species of Cascade and Torrent Frogs- specially adapted for living in rapids and waterfalls, with huge, powerful legs for jumping and tackling strong currents, and toe-pads for gripping slippery rocks.

Unfortunately, humans (especially myself) aren’t as well adapted to life in a swiftly flowing stream full of slippery boulders. Even though it isn’t raining, my clothes are saturated yet again!

What happens to you when you glance at a clock with a moving second hand? As I understand, it shouldn't have anything to do with your perception of time. Your brain simply overrides "the blur" of moving your eyes with an image of what your eyes see when they stop moving.

It sounds like iconic memory can possibly account for chronostasis and that chronostasis may be a particular form of change blindness.